I'm in New York!!! All 3 of us landed safely in Detroit and then hit our layover flight from Detroit to Rochester. No issues there. My mission President is President Evans. The first thing I noticed was that in Rochester we are VERY big on exact obedience (literally to the minute) which personally I love. The MTC seemed fairly casual but that's because of the amount of agency we are given, and President Evans (while we still get the same amount of agency) has asked countless times for exact obedience. As President Nelson said, obedience brings blessings, EXACT obedience brings miracles. I can promise you we've seen miracles here. I absolutely love it.
As soon as we got off the flight we were met by President Evans, and our zone leaders Elder Bouck and Elder Jaynes - both of whom are very close to going home. They took us, went downtown, and we immediately started contacting people! I split with Elder Bouck and he is such an amazing guy! We had a great time (which was a tiny bit uncomfortable to me because I'm not used to talking to so many people on the streets) talking to people. The biggest thing I noticed was that ANYONE could have their heart prepared by the Lord. What struck me the most was this one guy who was long dreadlocks, headphones in and singing along to a fairly explicit rap song. He was in his own world enjoying it all and I was thinking in my head "ah we'll probably just keep walking past him" but NOPE! Elder Bouck walked straight up to him and just started talking! I was like "is this for real??" And it turns out his heart was more than prepared for us! He was more than willing to come to church, and also gave us his phone number so we could contact him again. Unfortunately downtown wasn't the area I was later assigned to so it's likely I'll never see him again, but he was a very nice guy... As intimidating as he may have come off initially.
Anyways that was amazing. After that we were treated to an amazing ham, funeral potatoes and green bean dinner, followed by the best chocolate cake I've ever had in my entire life. Even saying THAT is an understatement! The grocery store here that everyone loves is called "wegman's" which is where the food is from. It's on the more expensive side but it is very good. Unfortunately I won't be shopping there much on a less than $50/week budget.
Thursday:
In the morning we went to the sacred grove and also the Hill Cumorah! While walking the trail getting ready to enter the sacred grove, I felt the spirit so strongly. Before I even saw the place I knew that this grove truly was something special compared to the rest of the world. The power of the spirit there can be related to the strength of the spirit inside of the temple. Seriously, it's that truly amazing. While we don't know exactly where Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, that doesn't matter so much. His spirit is everywhere in that grove
Later that day we also met our new companions! My companion is Elder Hawes. He is from Herriman and actually knows Christian and Clay Hughes from Summit's baseball team! He's a super awesome guy and has been helping me hold to the exact obedience rule that we have established here. At first I resisted it a bit thinking "what I'm doing is enough to be obedient" but honestly it's been easier for me to not fight it! I really appreciate what he's done so far as a trainer. We will be together for 2 transfers (at least). As the training process takes 12 weeks. He's a great guy and I've gotten to know him pretty well. Later that day we went proselyting/finding and we saw 3 people:
Kadeem - apparently we have been meeting with Kadeem since August. He is from the Bronx and moved to Buffalo (I forgot to mention I'm serving in Buffalos YSA branch. The branch consists of literally 30 members it's so cool!). Kadeem has had a pretty hard life. He's had trouble obeying the law of the land before and needs to find a job. I asked him the day we met if I could get to know him better and he's not the best with words but he just kept saying "the church is true. The church is true. The church is true. You gotta pray, you gotta go to church." He really just kinda kept repeating those statements and while it wasn't much, I felt the spirit in Him. He knew. He knew the church of Jesus Christ is true no matter all the trials he has been through. He's almost ready for baptism but there's a few things we gotta work with him on. I'll keep you updated on him - he's such an amazing guy!!
We also met Conan at the university at Buffalo (UB). He's a freshman from China and he's such a cool guy. We've met with him once after the initial contact and he says that this is all a lot to take in which is definitely true. Hopefully we can see him again soon.
Friday:
Mom, thank you so much for teaching me how to do food. I can't express my gratitude enough to you for that. Thank you very much! For breakfast I threw together an egg/ham/cheese burrito (kinda a go-to breakfast since we ran out of cereal) and that was pretty awesome. For lunch we decided to do PBJ sandwiches but I posed the idea of making them and then throwing them on the grill. Thank you again mom for that glorious idea. They were so much better than what they would've been!! For dinner I made the Parmesan chicken with tomato sauce you showed me as well. He actually took a picture of it to send home!
We also met Donald! Donald is a brand new member of the church. Wanna know how he found out about the church of Jesus Christ?? THROUGH A YOUTUBE AD! HE SAW AN AD ON YOUTUBE FOR THE CHURCH AND REFERRED HIMSELF TO THE MISSIONARIES!! Talk about a seriously prepared heart right!?! He actually just went yo the temple for the first time on Saturday and he brought his own names for baptism that he found through family tree!!! How absolutely amazing is that?!?!
Saturday:
We woke up at 5:45 for a meeting with Elder Bennett of the seventies in Rochester. Rochester is about a 1.5 hour drive from Buffalo so we carpooled with other missionaries because we have a limited amount of miles per month that we can use. We try our best not to go over that amount. Sometimes it's impossible when you make multiple trips to Rochester though.
Anyways Elder Bennett is such an amazing guy. You can tell he loves everyone. The biggest thing I took away from meeting with him was I need to learn to love those I teach. During his talk he mentioned a scripture reference in D&C that while we look for people to teach, we are looking for those whose hearts have been prepared, for the "elect" we did a roleplay and we figured out that it takes roughly 15-20 seconds of conversing to be able to (most of the time) see if someone is apart of the "elect"
Sunday:
Fast Sunday! I actually look forward to fast Sundays in the YSA branch, after church we have something called "break the fast" in which we just get a ton of food... for free!! Since we are rarely fed by members of the church (YSA members are all going to college and are on meal plans. We don't ask them to feed us), I love fast Sundays even more so now!
We had a meeting with Conan scheduled for around 6 tonight but unfortunately that fell through. Hopefully we will be able to meet with him again soon. Also, my prayers were immediately answered tonight while finding people to teach.
I learned how to love those I teach. While finding, there was someone who we talked to that didn't seem very interested at all in the chur church but we were able to continue talking to them for awhile. While my companion was talking, 3 words came to my mind that were not my own: he isn't prepared.
This broke my heart once I realized it. This person we were talking to was not prepared to hear literally the most important message of his life. That Christ, our savior, was literally tortured in every way imaginable and then also in ways we cannot even begin to comprehend because of his love for us. He wasn't prepared to learn about him. That broke my heart and I almost started crying right after we walked away. You all know how much I cry... I don't really do that. My prayers were answered that day and I believe that I have learned how to truly love those that I teach.
Well, that's my week aside from pday. So far we've just cleaned the apartment, gotten groceries, then a pizza at the local gas station WHICH ACTUALLY TASTES SO MUCH BETTER THAN ANY PIZZA CHAIN IN UTAH!! NEW YORKERS REALLY KNOW HOW TO MAKE THEIR PIZZA HERE!
The work here is hard. Finding people to teach hasn't been impossible but I know that even if I only bring one person to baptism on my mission, my 2 years here will have been well spent.
Spiritual quote for the week: Alma chapter 26.
Ammon starts "boasting" about how much work he, Aaron, and his brethren have done for the lamanites in converting them to the Lord. Aaron tries to correct Ammon, saying he fears you are boasting of yourself. Ammon says he does not boast of himself as he knows he is weak, but he boasts of his God.
But that's actually not what intrigued me the most. He and his brethren converted thousands of Lamanites. People who delighted in murder and all sorts of evil doings. Not only did he convert thousands, but look at the time frame - from 90-77 BC. THAT'S 13 YEARS. AMMON AND HIS BRETHEREN CONVERTED THOUSANDS OF WICKED PEOPLE IN 13 YEARS.
Anyways, that's been my week. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers! I've felt them as I've gone through my week. I love you all!
~Elder Breshears
The first is Elder Weber (left), me, and Elder Barry (right) at 4:30 ambefore we left for New York
Second is a picture of my luggage from the plane window. You can tell it's mine because of the pineapple tag. Told you it was a good idea mom!!
The third is a picture of our bedroom. It's suuuuuper small but honestly we don't need much room anyways. Our apartment is on the second floor and there's not much extra space anywhere but we are doing just fine in it! I'm loving everything here so far!
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